Scene Last Night: BlackRock’s Novick, Langone, Rossellini

By Amanda Gordon -
Nov 13, 2013

As a Francis Bacon triptych sold for
$142.4 million at a New York auction last night, the city popped
with fundraising, retail excursions, Harvey Weinstein film
showcases, and a heavyweight boxer in the ring at the New York
Public Library.

* Gary Cohn, president of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., running an
auction at the NYU Langone Musculoskeletal Ball, took four bids
of $10,000 each, in about as many seconds, to send doctors to
Haiti. In the audience: Ken Langone, co-founder of Home Depot
Inc.; Samantha Greenberg, a managing director at Paulson & Co.,
and Orin Snyder, a lawyer for Apple Inc. Cohn looked slim -- he
said travel to Asia had led him to shed pounds -- which must
have been a nice way to mark his 27th wedding anniversary. The
couple saw the Eagles at Madison Square Garden, where they were
the only ones dancing, said Lisa Pevaroff Cohn. They stayed
until the last song, “Desperado,” said Gary Cohn.

* Isabella Rossellini, at the same benefit, thanked her
orthopedic surgeon Frank Schwab for successfully operating on
her spine to treat scoliosis, while Barbara Novick, a co-founder
of BlackRock and an honoree, thanked co-worker Richie Prager,
head of trading and liquidity markets, for serving as chairman
of the event journal. It had more than 100 ads, including full
pages from the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation and Daniel
and Jane Och. On music, Novick said she likes Enya. On the
subject of young women entering finance, she said, “You can do
anything you want to do. There are women astronauts, women
running for president. Thirty years ago, when I started, there
was none of that.”

* Kara Ross, who returned two weeks ago from a trip to the
Galapagos Islands -- where she saw “the most beautiful crabs”
and blue-footed boobies -- wore an $18,995 angel-skin coral ring
at her new 250-square-foot boutique on East 60th Street. There’s
room for Ross’s jewelry, handbags and maybe six really skinny
customers, like actress Debra Messing, who tried on a rose-quartz ring for $12,500.

* Designers Tory Burch and Eric Javits turned down steak tartare
served on spoons at Le Bilboquet, across the street from Ross’s
boutique, at a reception to accommodate all of her guests.
Absent when I dropped by: Ross’s husband, billionaire Stephen Ross, chairman and founder of Related Cos. He showed up later.

* At La Lunchonette, singer Ciara and Carven creative director
Guillaume Henry found napkins embroidered with their first names
during a dinner to celebrate the new Carven store on Mercer
Street, bringing Paris to SoHo.

* At the H&M store on Fifth Avenue, Nicky Hilton got an early
shop of the guest line created by French designer Isabel Marant.
Hannah Bronfman deejayed the event wearing a $399 padded jacket
with red-beaded embroidery from the collection.

* “Gilded New York,” showing jewels and costumes from the
1870s to the early 20th century, opened at the Museum of the
City of New York, inaugurating a new Tiffany & Co. (TIF) Foundation
gallery.

* Paul Volcker, former Fed chairman, hedge-fund manager Richard Chilton and Steve Forbes were at the Four Seasons for the
awarding of a $20,000 prize for “short writing of all kinds in
the spirit and style of President Calvin Coolidge.”

* A robot named ProJo designed by Sandra Okita, a professor at
Columbia University’s Teachers College, introduced Teacher’s
College 125th-anniversary gala honoree Jeffrey Immelt, chief
executive and chairman of General Electric Co., on stage at the
Apollo Theater.

* There were screenings of the Weinstein Company films
“Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” and “Philomena,” as well as
one for the African Environmental Film Foundation expose “White
Gold,” about the African ivory trade. The latter, at the Museum
of Modern Art, was attended by Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, Pace Gallery’s Arne Glimcher, Iman and fashion blogger
Hanneli Mustaparta.

* Mike Tyson said reading about history is important during a
talk in the Live from the New York Public Library series.